steadily lower in the sky. . . .

* * * * * *

"Nan's very late."

Mrs. Seymour made the statement rather blankly. Dinner had been
announced and the house-party were gathered together in the hall round
the great hearth fire. The summer day had chilled to a cool evening,
as so often happens by the sea, and the ruddy flames diffused a cheery
glow of warmth.

"Perhaps Lady Gertrude is keeping her to dinner," said Lord St. John.
"It's very probable." As he spoke he held out his hands to the
fire--withered old hands that looked somehow frailer than their wont.

Kitty shook her head.

"No. She--I don't think she enjoyed her visit overmuch, and, when she
came back she went out cycling--to 'work it off,'" she said.

"Where did she go?" inquired Penelope.

"To Tintagel. I told her she wouldn't have time enough to get there
and back before dinner. Never mind. We'll begin, and I'll order
something to be kept hot for her."

Accordingly they all adjourned to the dining-room and dinner proceeded
in its usual leisurely fashion, although the gay chatter that generally
accompanied it was absent. Everyone seemed conscious of a certain
uneasiness.

"I wish young Nan would come back," remarked Barry at last, looking up
abruptly from the fish he was dissecting. A shade of anxiety clouded
his lazy blue eyes. "I hope she's not come a cropper down one of these
confounded hills."

He voiced the restless feeling of suspense which was beginning to
pervade the whole party.

"What time did she start, Kit?" he went on.

"About five o'clock, I should think, or soon after."

"Then she'd have had loads of time to get back by now."

The general tension took the form of a sudden silence. Then Peter
Mallory spoke, very quietly:

"She didn't propose going up to the castle, did she?" In spite of its
quietness his voice had a certain clipped sound that drove home the
significance of his question.

"Yes, she did." Kitty tried to reassure herself. "But she's as
surefooted as a deer. We all went up the other day and Nan was by far
the best climber amongst us."

Almost simultaneously Peter and Barry were on their feet.

"Something may have happened, all the same," said Barry with concern.
"She might have sprained her ankle--or--or anything."

He turned to the servant nearest him.

"Tell Atkinson to get the car round and to be quick about it."

"Very good, sir." And the man disappeared o